284 On Animals depicted on Antique Monuments, 



son. It is the same also with certain insects, for it would be a 

 mistake to suppose that the ancients had confined themselves to 

 supply representations of a few beetles (principally the Ateu- 

 chus sacer et impius), to which they had devoted particular 

 attention on account of their utility. On the contrary, their 

 attention was equally directed to a great variety of kinds, and 

 to nearly all the orders. So is it with the Crustaceae. The an- 

 cient mosaics, as well as the paintings found in Pompeii and 

 Herculaneum, include a great number, as we shall prove at 

 another time. 



This review will assuredly be sufficient to prove with what 

 minute attention the ancients studied the various productions 

 of nature, inasmuch as they have left us such faithful repre- 

 sentations of them. They appear, however, to have neglected 

 some of them ; and among these we may chiefly mention shells 

 and their inhabitants. In fact, with the exception of the fretted 

 heliiv and the buccinum {Triton nodiferum), which they have 

 often applied to the mouth of their tritons and naiades, and other 

 sea divinities, shells are but rarely represented upon the antiques. 

 The number of varieties is very inconsiderable, especially when 

 compared with the Articulata, which appear to have attracted 

 the attention of their artists nearly as much as the vertebral ani- 

 mals of the most complicated organization. Before bringing 

 these observations to a close, we cannot resist the temptation of 

 alluding to the beautiful cameo, engraved in the fourth volume 

 of La Galerie de Florence, in which we observe a triton blow- 

 ing the shell. The head and breast are those of a man, whilst 

 the feet are those of one of the palmipede birds, and the rest of 

 the body corresponds to that of a fish. Every thing in this ca- 

 meo indicates the lot of this divinity, who, like certain birds, 

 palmipede and fishy, was to dwell upon the waters of the ocean. 



These details demonstrate that the real beings depicted upon 

 antique monuments, are thus as numerous as they are accurate ; 

 that is to say, that each maintains its general characters and dis- 

 tinctive traits. If it were necessary to subjoin additional proofs 

 to a fact which no one, we hope, will dispute, our attention 

 might be directed to the crocodiles of the Nile, the first five 

 living specimens of which were exhibited to the Romans by 

 Emilius Scaurus. Let the sculpture of these animals be ex- 



